T.V. Monitoring

I wish I had a better handle on this and have resolved to make it better.
When we lived in Denver, our tv was downstairs (you had to make an effort to be there) and we didn't have any cable. It was PBS or videos for my daughter.
We have cable now and a one level house with the tv easily accessed and she really asks a lot to watch tv. It's ok in the morning -- about 1.5 hours -- but it's the afternoon that bothers me. We had our electricity out for a day last week and it was wonderful. I only let her watch PBS, Disney, or Noggin and that limits the commercials. Well, except the Disney commercials but those aren't as bad as the ones on other channels.
When I do put my foot down, she usually finds something else to do -- something more constructive and more fun. I think I'm going to limit it to Reading Rainbow only in the afternoon. I've also been trying to play card or board games with her or other things we can't do when the baby is awake...assuming she is asleep....and that helps too.

I'd give up the cable if it weren't for HBO and Six Feet Under. After then next season is over, I think I'll scrap it. There is usually nothing on anyway.

We limit the TV exposure as well, and it is met with no struggles as we have done this all along. Usually the TV is only on in the evenings for the kids about 30min to an hour and it is along the lines of Toy Story, Mary Poppins, Home on the Range to Pooh or Babe. Our oldest would love to watch more TV, but he is like a sponge and can literally recall things that he has heard or seen for only a few seconds...


....case in point- we are monitoring our radio listening. It is very hard to get radio worth listening to where we are living. My beater car doesn't even have a tape player so I was flipping through the stations trying to find something like NPR--which isn't to be found, but there are about six different talk radio shows that are as inappropriate as today's music lyrics. Anyway, I flipped past a rap station that was playing the latest from Ludacris(listening for about ten seconds to figure out that wasn't what we need to hear)- well it obviously appealled to the 5yo in the car...about a half hour later he was repeating the words 'get back, you don't know me like that'....then something along the lines of 'I came, I saw, I hit right in the jaw' Can't wait for the report from his teachers on that one!!

So we listen to classical CD's or Enya most the travel time now with the occassional Disney disc in there too.

We stopped watching the tv news when the kids are up. I couldn't take explaining why the police were after such and such person, what was in that black plastic bag, and all the other lovely topics they start out with.

We have NPR tuned in on all our radios, but DS is even catching on to their reports about deaths or violence. I knew I was a mom the day I tuned into the local lite rock station and was so happy that it didn't have anything objectionable on it.

DS (4) watches PBS and sometimes Noggin. I have to find the mildest videos I can because he gets upset if their is shooting or other violence, which is actually hard to avoid in many G movies. Usually we wind up with the Magic School Bus or other science types of shows. we switched a year or so ago when he started asking for things from commercials.

We have him at one hour on school days, 2 on weekends. Snow days are as much as I need to get stuff done with a little sanity left by bedtime. We check out videos and dvds from the local library and DS gets to choose 2 each week. Its also a disciple tool, be naughty, lose tv privs.

HOpefully we will all be cutting back because its unlikley we will have cable once school starts.

I watch mostly BBC American, TLC and HGTV, with a nice dose of Law& Order SVU and HBO's Carnivale thrown in. Daytime TV is a wasteland.

[mommax3]

My kids (the older two) pretty much don't watch tv. We all watch America's Funniest Home Videos and Extreme Home Makeover on Sunday nights, and that is about it for them. They are in bed by the time anything we watch comes on. My youngest watches Noggin in the mornings, meaning that it is on as he runs around, plays with toys, and sometimes looks at the actual tv. We sing the songs that come on there together and sometimes dance around. I don't mind it at all.

The other two would watch lots of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network if I would let them.....but I won't! They do sometimes (special occasions) veg out in front of Animal Planet, which I don't mind.

Sally

[SueC]

I am just starting to limit TV around here--I'm shooting for an hour a day or less. We did great yesterday, they only watched TV for about 20 minutes in the morning. But, they had parent's day out AND the weather was beautiful so once we got home we spent the rest of the afternoon outside. When the weather is crappy, I'm more likely to turn the TV on (and unfortunately at the ages of 3 and 5 they BOTH know how to turn on the TV and locate a cartoon). Oh shoot, I just remembered they watched another hour yesterday evening. Oh well, I guess we didn't do so hot! I haven't done a great job of monitoring which particular cartoons they watch. For instance, right now they are watching that grim reaper cartoon on cartoon network (personally I find this cartoon pretty funny, but I know it's not appropriate for the preschool set). They haven't really been mimicking any behaviors from this or other cartoons, but I suppose I still should be more vigilant. My intentions are good, but too often, I'm trying to get some work done and they are downstairs flipping through the channels and I don't get up to go down and see exactly what they are watching.
BTW, my daughter (who is 5 and only 30 lbs) has also made a few comments about being fat! I was totally shocked the first time I heard her say that. I don't know where she got that from.

[DCJenn]

Since Nikolai has never even seen a television, I'm hoping to continue that trend when we get him home. (He also had never seen a man until Rick, so I think he's going to have plenty of adjustments to be making without the TV blaring in the background.) It should start to be pretty nice aboutt he time we get him home- March and April have occasional warm days and I expect that he and I will be out as much as possible. Hopefully with Petey, too although Petey is afraid of anything with wheels (Thankfully!) so I don't know how well he'll adjust to walking next to the stroller. He does fine with the carts at PetSmart though. (I let him come with me and he can pick a toy. This is why I need a child...)

Jenn

No kids yet but, when I recently had my 7 yo nephew and 5 yo niece stay with me, I turned on Nickelodeon and couldn't believe the kind of stuff they show on that network. I don't know if I'm being prudish, but a lot of the shows and even commercials seemed really inappropriate for children. I used to watch Nickelodeon when I was about 9 or 10 and I don't remember it being that way.

[Phoebe]

This issue is my biggest battle on my conscience. I feel like the TV is on entirely too much. DD#1 loves to watch and asks often. She can be easily distracted to more constructive things like others have mentioned. I knew I wouldn't win the TV battle with DH glued to it most of his waking moments so I had the mega cable installed just to have Noggin. Besides that I allow PBS or Disney. She is just as interested in watching movies and would be glued to the TV all day if I let her. Viewing time is limited to morning and occassional late afternoon so I can have a break. In the car, we listen to children's tapes 90% of the time.

Jennifer

[mommax3]

Yeah, about the mega-cable.....we did have to go up a tier to get Noggin, although at the time, I don't know if there was Noggin (?) four years ago.....anyway, we went up a tier to get Discovery Kids which was a big hit around here, and also a channel called Nickelodeon GAS (Games and Sports) which showed the re-runs of all the games that Nickelodeon has had through the years. My older two used to watch that channel a lot, but now it is just my youngest that watches Noggin. We pay for the extra tier, but in order to get that tier, you have to have a cable box, and they charge for EACH cable box, so we only get those extra channels on one t.v. because I wasn't going to pay more.

As far as being able to socialize with other kids, I think there is some truth to that, but if the show isn't acceptable, then that's that, as far as I'm concerned. I agree that there is a bunch of trash on Nickelodeon these days. The socialization issue has affected us more in terms of movies that my oldest has seen compared with what his classmates have seen, and also the issue of bringing his gameboy to school....the other kids were all doing it during recess time and I wouldn't let him bring his, so he felt left out. I talked to the teacher and said that I thought recess was for running around, not videogames, and the teacher agreed and changed the rule. (My son loved me especially much during that time.) But now the kids are allowed to bring them on special days only, and if my son earns the privilege, he can bring his too.

Sally

Good for you, Sally -- Gameboys at recess? No wonder kids are struggling with obesity.

I'll have to look into the Noggin and super-duper cable package. Dagny was kind enough to let me know that this season (#5) will be the last for Six Feet Under. It will probably end around September or October. My cable bill pains me, but I'm willing to pay for it through that. Hello, my name is Nellie, and I have a problem....

Nickelodeon is a no-go in our house as well. Maybe it won't seem as bad when she is older but the commercial content really turned me off with all the crap food advertised. Next up, the content.

After reading these posts, I am really going to make more of a push to reduce tv time. I have had to spend so much time on the phone (over 1500 minutes in October and December ) dealing with stuff for Eric's parents that I can't keep to just when she is in school . I ended up letting the tv get out of control to keep her quiet and also because of guilt. No more! Besides, once I get into a puzzle or game with her, we have a good time.

I have been lucky that my 4 year old has had no exposure to gameboys. We have no family here, and none of my friends have older kids, so there really isn';t anyone with one that he knows. Once he starts kindergarten this fall I am sure that will change.

Kinda funny, I picked up his backpack the other day and it was really heavy. There were about 10 hotwheel type cars in one section, that he was taking into the car in the morning and putting in his backpack at school because they can't bring their own toys to class.

[Rapunzel]

My son keeps asking for a gameboy and we keep telling him, "No". The kids already have a Gamecube and they are allowed to play it for a timed period after their schoolwork is complete during the day.

In the last couple of years I've limited their television to PBS stuff. They really love Arthur, Cyberchase, and Zoom. And the youngest loves the perennial favorite Sesame Street. The majority of the other PBS programming I really think counts as junk food for the mind. I still think they watch too much television, though, and I recently began implementing "No TV" days. The days when they haven't watched any television tend to be the better ones - they are less grumpy and they DO find other, more constructive, things to do around the house.

Jennifer

[Phoebe]

I use TV as a discipline tool also. Last night my 3 yo lost her privledges for TV watching today. I informed DH last night and DD this morning. Apparently, there is selective listening and remembering in my home. I went for a run and came home to find DD in front of the TV. When I made eye contact with my DH, he immediately went into a defensive mode that he couldn't remember if I meant movies or no TV and that DD was showing off her future skills as an attorney. She argued that mommy said she couldn't watch TV upstairs but could downstairs and that she couldn't watch TV just Noggin. So DH let her watch Noggin. I can't leave the house!

I had to clarify that TV meant no power to the box! I make a point to not undermine DH to the kids (to try and set a good example of parenting, not reciprocated!) so my discipline went out the window and DD racked up more TV time. It has been 3 years and we are still not on the same page.

Jennifer

[houseelf]

Wendy asked:

my MIL tells me that if I don't let DD watch her favorite programs on Nickelodeon and CN that she'll be "out" with her friends because they all watch them. What do you think? I'm not sure that's good rationalization for letting your kids watch something you find offensive.

I'm not sure that I buy into this whole "cultural literacy" theory of tv. I really try to limit my own tv and yet I find I have no problem coming up with things to talk about even though I have never seen Seinfeld, Sex in The City, The Osbournes, or Six feet Under. (I do watch desperate housewives and the amazing race, just to come clean here).

I know that I've already "pushed" this book in the book section, but you all really should read Juliet Schor's "Born to Buy". She deals with this issue straight on and her research yields absolutely frightening results.

We don't have cable, but DS would watch TV all day long if I let him. We do lots of videos, some in Spanish (which he groans "oh, alright"). I must admit that he has the Batman series, which he adores and I abhor. DS plays no video games and rarely, if ever, has been on the computer. I feel like this is a constant battle in my household and I grow weary of fighting it. Especially when DH watches too much TV and spends too much time gaming and on the computer.

I have caved on the batman thing because he looves anything dealing with superheroes and truthfully he nagged me beyond my limits.

My first inkling that "We weren't in Kansas" anymore came when he was three and started watching Saturday morning cartoons. There was ONLY hyperviolent, over sexualized, commercial cartoons. I don't mind mindless drivel, but come on, do we really need Kim Possible's sass mouth with her belly hanging out or the Power Rangers battling everything in sight for 30 minutes?

Stepping off my soapbox....

In sum, we struggle too.

Kelly

[mommax3]

Yeah, although I think the social thing does come into play, it is non-negotiable as far as most t.v. shows go.....t.v. is mostly a wasteland, imo. However, in the past year, my oldest son started feeling "left out" at school because he hadn't seen the movies that a lot of his classmates had. My first instinct was to say "so what" and actually, I did follow that path for a while. Then I saw "Pirates of the Carribbean" myself (one of the movies that was up for debate) and I realized that my son could probably handle it just fine.....although it would have freaked him out when he was four or five. He was really sensitive about scary stuff when he was younger....even a particular Disney Sing-Along video that showed Donald et al dressed as ghosts at a haunted house sent him over the edge. However, what seems like just a little while ago to me was in reality half of his life ago.....he had grown up a LOT, but we hadn't changed our rules at all. So we adjusted things a bit.

It meant a lot to him to see Pirates, all the Lord of the Rings movies, Spiderman I and Spiderman II and a few others. He felt "grown up" and most of all, he felt like we listened to him. His younger brother, who has never been as sensitive as the oldest, has seen the above movies too, to no ill effect. However, I have been really vigilant and my youngest (who is more like my oldest was, although not as bad) has not seen any of those movies, except Pirates, and when he is in the room, we fast-forward through the scary parts. It is impossible to protect younger siblings from outside influences the way you do your first!

Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon will probably not be okay here while my kids are elementary aged. Like I said, the two that are in school pretty much don't watch t.v. But they do watch videos fairly often on the weekends.

My oldest got a gameboy for Christmas when he was in first grade. We have always timed his play (just like we do with the Game Cube) and it has been a great motivator as far as behavior goes! We pull it out for road trips, but really, the majority of time, it is sitting on the top shelf of DH's closet and only comes out at special times. My middle son has one now, too, and the same rules apply.

Power Rangers.....that brings back memories! My oldest son's personality as a 4/5 year old was such that there was NO way I would consider him watching Power Rangers. However, my middle son is a much calmer child and we allowed him to watch them (actually, we allowed both of them to watch...my older son was about 7 by this point...and the fact that Power Rangers came on at 7 on Saturday mornings MAY have had something to do with it, too ) and we found some cheap videos, too. He had all the little figurines and played with them a TON, but he didn't really act like a Power Ranger or anything, like I know my oldest would have done at that age. Anyway, the whole thing ran its course in about a year and a half, and we sold all of the Power Rangers paraphenelia at our garage sale last fall......I was actually kind of sad to see it go in a strange way, because it was so representative of that period in Joel's life! But I wasn't sad enough to hang onto it in case Nathan gets interested in them.

Anyway, as far as all this stuff goes, I think your gut pretty much tells you what is okay and what is not for your child(ren). What I have found much harder is to deal with the fact that they are always growing up and things that formerly weren't appropriate can become so....the timing of that is tricky!

Sally